The Macroeconomic Effects of Macroprudential Policy : Evidence from a Narrative Approach

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of macroprudential policy—in the form of legalreserve requirements—in three Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay). To correctly identifyinnovations in changes in legal reserve requirements, a narrative approach—based on contemporaneous reports from theIMF and central banks in the spirit of Romer and Romer (2010)—is developed in which each change is classified intoendogenous or exogenous to the business cycle. This distinction is critical in understanding the macroeconomiceffects of reserve requirements. In particular, while output falls in response to exogenous increases in legal reserverequirements, it is not affected when using all changes and relying on traditional time-identifying strategies. Thisbias reflects the practical relevance of the misidentification of endogenous countercyclical changes inreserve requirements. The empirical frontier is also pushed along two important dimensions. First, in measuring legalreserve requirements, both the different types of legal reserve requirements in terms of maturity and currency ofdenomination as well as the structure of deposits are taken in account. Second, since in practice reserve requirementpolicy is tightly linked to monetary policy, the study jointly analyze the macroeconomic effects of changes incentral bank interest rates. To properly identify exogenous central bank interest rate shocks, the Romer and Romer(2004) strategy is used.